Vocal

Something teachers notice frequently when working with middle school students is that when the students are performing a two-person scene onstage, they tend to turn their bodies directly towards whomever they're talking to. This is understandable, as that’s what people do naturally to hear each other better and establish the fact that they’re listening. However, when students are onstage and turn their bodies away from the audience, they’re essentially closing themselves off. It makes it more challenging for the audience to hear the performers and see their facial expressions. Of course, we know there are times when performers must turn away from the audience, and in those cases, ensuring that students have worked on projecting their voices without shouting is key. But with all skills, practice makes progress, so let’s start by reinforcing the concept of “cheating out” towards the audience. Cheating out refers to actors standing with their bodies facing out towards the audience, but slightly angled towards their scene partner and looking at them out of the corner of their upstage eye using their peripheral vision. This gives the audience the illusion that the actor is speaking to their scene partner, while the audience can still see them. It also makes it easier for students to project their voice, as they aren’t facing fully sideways or towards the back of the stage. So let’s practice. Here are two games you can play with middle school drama students to practice "cheating out" towards the audience by using exaggerated body movements and standing positions. Students are going to feel strange or unnatural playing the games, and that’s the point — they’re meant to practice moving their bodies differently onstage. For both games, you’ll need copies of a short (one page or less) two-person scene for each student. You’ll also need a pack of Post-it Notes or index cards and tape for the second game. Game One: Toes ForwardGive students a copy of a short (one-page or less) two-person scene. If you wish, read the scene out loud before playing the game so everyone can hear it. Select two students to go first, draw names out of a hat, or ask for volunteers. Have the two students act the scene out in front of the rest of the class cold-reading style, with script in hand. Encourage students to use lots of movement and gestures in their scene and try not to just stand in one place. The catch is that no matter where or how students move on the stage, their toes must point towards the audience. This forces students to keep most of their body facing the audience. How will they move, stand, and bend the rest of their body? If you wish, have an audience member count (silently) how many times the students’ toes move away from the audience. Repeat this game until each student has had a chance to perform in front of the class. Game Two: Post-ItGive students a short (one-page or less) two-person scene. If you wish, read the scene aloud as a group. Have two students volunteer to start the game. Stick an index card or brightly coloured Post-it Note on each student’s back. *Have them act out the scene using lots of movement and gestures, but they have to keep the Post-it on their back hidden from the audience. *Again, this forces students to keep their bodies open towards the audience. Have audience members count (silently) how many times they see the Post-its. Repeat this game until each student has had a chance to perform in front of the class. For both games, after everyone has had a chance to perform, ask students verbally or have them write a reflection on what was the easiest and the most challenging part of the game. How did this game help to make them a better actor? If you played both versions of the game, which one was easier? Which one felt more natural? How can they apply or adjust this technique to a real onstage performance? Again, there will be many times in theatrical productions and scene work where students will turn away from the audience, as instructed by the director. But it’s always good for students to practice opening themselves out to the audience, and to make this slightly unnatural, theatrical way of moving and standing start to feel more normal when they’re performing.

The following exercise gives students the opportunity to explore different ways of approaching and performing a two-person scene, using two different levels of volume: only whispering and shouting. It challenges students to act outside their comfort zones, employ safe vocal projection techniques, and analyze a character’s lines. Note: You may want to warn any teachers whose classrooms are near to yours ahead of time that you’re doing this exercise with your students — it can get noisy! Additionally, be aware if you have any students with sensory concerns who may find this exercise overwhelming — you might want to give them a quiet place to do the analysis in Prompt E and excuse them from the rehearsal process. Materials Needed: • A copy of a short, two-person scene for each student (such as a section from “The Big Lie” from Ten/Two) • A pencil for each student (to make notes on the script paper) • Water • Optional: a whistle or noisemaker to get students’ attention between rehearsal prompts, in case they’re all shouting at once Instructions: 1. Start with a vocal warm-up. Try one of the warm-up exercises found in our article Fun Rehearsal Warm-Ups to Get Everyone Ready. 2. Divide students into pairs. 3. Give each pair a short scene to analyze and rehearse. Students will play the same character in the scene for the entire class. 4. Over the course of the class, each pair will analyze and rehearse the scene six different ways (the prompts are described below). In between prompt rehearsals, select a pair of students to present the scene in front of the rest of the class using the prompt they’re currently working on. Depending on the amount of class time you have, it’s likely that all students will not be able to perform each version of the scene. However, if you know your students and their strengths/weaknesses well, select student performers who will be challenged by the prompts (for example, choose a quieter student to shout and an outgoing or chatty student to whisper). Encourage students to drink lots of water throughout the process. 5. Rehearse and present (on book) the six prompts in the following order: • Both characters whisper (while still ensuring the audience hears them). • Both characters shout (while protecting their voices). • Character A shouts all their lines; Character B whispers all their lines. • Reverse the shouting/whispering (Character B shouts; Character A whispers). • Analyze line by line: Characters can ONLY whisper or shout. Choose what you think is most appropriate for each line. Mark it on your script with a W for whisper or an S for shout. • Reverse the shouting/whispering from Prompt E. 6. After each prompt performance, discuss: • What was your initial impression of the presentation? • What worked well? • What didn’t work so well? • After Prompt E: What lines, if any, would you have changed from a whisper to a shout or vice versa? Why? 7. After all the prompts have been performed, discuss: • How does your voice feel? (Have them drink more water at this point.) • Which prompt worked the best overall? Why? • Name something funny or memorable that happened during today’s performances. • What was the most challenging aspect of only being able to whisper or shout? • How can this exercise help you to become a better actor? 8. Students will complete and submit an exit slip (link below). Additional Resources:• 3 Tips for Keeping Your Voice Healthy and 3 More Tips for Keeping Your Voice Healthy • Rehearsal Exercise: Turn Up the Volume • Can You Hear Me Now? A Peer-Led Volume Exercise • Why Isn’t My Actor Projecting Their Voice? • How Do You Promote Vocal Safety?

The following exercise, Lipdub, brings together observation, critical thinking, scene writing, and vocal performance. As well, it’s a lot of fun! Lipdubs are commonly seen on YouTube as musical performances, but they can also be created for spoken scenes, which is what this exercise focuses on. The instructions below are for students to perform via distance learning (and can be completed without students having to turn on their cameras if necessary) but can also be done live in class. Instructions:1. Preparation: Divide students into pairs. Select a YouTube video of two characters talking to each other (live, animated, people, animals, whatever you want). Keep the scene brief – one minute or less. 2. Observation: Turn the sound off and have students watch the video multiple times. Have students study the facial expressions and physical gestures performed by the characters, as well as the movements of the characters’ mouths and how long they talk for. Individually, students will make notes about what they think the characters might be talking about and what emotions are portrayed. 3. Scene Writing: In their pairs, students will write a script from the scene. The scene can be about any topic. Students should aim to make the lines match the mouth movements of the characters in the video, and make the lines and theme of the scene make sense with the emotions portrayed on screen (Critical Thinking). Students should use proper playwriting formatting and will submit the script for evaluation. 4. (Optional) Vocal Performance: Depending on the time allotted for this exercise and your students’ technological abilities/limitations, you may wish to include the following performance portion of the exercise. Students will either record themselves speaking over the video and submit it, or perform the scene “live” over your class video conferencing app. You’ll need to be able to share your screen while the students perform with the video, and be aware of any technical difficulties such as freezing computers, lag, or echoes. Feel free to have students start again if they have a technological malfunction while they’re performing. 5. Reflection: Students will complete and submit a reflection (found below).

The exercises listed below can be adapted to distance and online learning opportunities. Students work individually (rather than with partners or in groups). Group work and discussions can be completed using video conferencing programs (such as Google Hangouts, Skype, or Zoom). Written work can be submitted electronically via email or uploading to Google Drive or similar. Performances can be done live via video conferencing programs, or filmed on a smartphone or digital camera and uploaded to a service such as YouTube or Vimeo (privacy settings can be adjusted to accommodate your school’s internet safety policies). Vocal ExercisesVocal exercises can be done together via video conferencing programs (such as Skype, Zoom, or Google Hangouts), or filmed on a smartphone and submitted to the teacher. 1. A Simple Breath Control Exercise for Actors & Singers 2. Can You Hear Me Now? A Peer-Led Volume Exercise Students should focus not only on volume, but also diction and enunciation 3. Create a Vocal Workout for the Articulators 4. The Vowel Tree 5. 5 Tongue-Twister Exercises for Ensemble Building For a written project, have students write their own tongue twisters. Have them answer the question: “How does using tongue twisters help them to become actors?” 6. 10 Rounds for Your Next Warm Up Physical Performance ExercisesStudents can practice physical exercises from their own homes using a video conferencing program and following along with the teacher’s prompts, while teachers can observe students’ participation on their own screen. 1. Bound, Punch, Float: Physicality Exercise 2. Character Development Game: What’s For Breakfast 3. Create a Commedia Dell’Arte Character Focus on “The Lazzi of the Sandwich” 4. Creating Your Own Commedia Lazzi Focus on “The Lazzi of Surprise” 5. Developing Your Character’s Physicality from Head to Toe 6. Exploring Different Voices Using Puppets, Masks, and Props “Props” is the easiest of the exercises to complete via distance learning. However, students could create puppets at home using socks or paper bags, and masks could also be made at home using paper. 7. High Status / Low Status Character Physicality 8. Stage Vs. Screen: A Comparison of Acting Techniques 9. Thinking of Your Character as an Animal 10. 3 Fitness Tips for Drama Students 11. 5 Tips for Physicalizing a Non-Human Character

In this round-up, we’ve gathered a whole host of useful warm-up games that you can use in your drama classroom that focus on different aspects of communication. Communication isn’t just students talking to each other – it encompasses many different ways of sharing stories, thoughts, ideas, and feelings. Vocal Technique & ClarityWe’re starting with the basics – vocal technique and clarity. If your students are speaking too quickly or garbling their words, the audience won’t be able to understand the story they are trying to communicate. A simple, yet effective warm-up for vocal technique and clarity is to recite the alphabet out loud, as a full group, in a slow, over-enunciated, and exaggerated manner. Have students open their mouths and eyes wide, and really focus on drawing out every single sound from each letter. And yes, you will all look silly together! For an additional challenge, once you have gone through the alphabet once slowly, you can either speed up the tempo of the group alphabet (without losing any clarity), recite the alphabet backwards, or have students do a gesture (such as bending their knees or clapping their hands) on every third letter. Try these warm-ups too: • A Vocal Workout for the Articulators • Tongue Twister Teamwork (and other exercises) • Breath Control for Actors & Singers • Listening / Teamwork Tongue Twister Exercise Active ListeningAre your students listening to understand, or are they just waiting until they get to speak again? Active listening is a huge part of effective communication. There is nothing more frustrating than talking to someone and feeling like you aren’t being listened to. Here’s a fun warm-up game for students to practice active listening while practicing their improvisation skills. Have students sit or stand in a circle. Going around the circle, give each student a number in succession – 3, 5, and 7. Give the students a topic to talk about or a story starter prompt. The first student starts the story with 3 words, the second student continues with 5 words, the third student continues with 7 words, the fourth student continues with 3 words, and so on. It’s up to you to decide whether the story should be silly or serious. For example, here is a story about birds: Student 1: A bird named Student 2: George decided to go to Student 3: South America to visit his friend. So Student 4: he purchased a Student 5: ticket for the train. However, Student 6: once he arrived, he realized he forgot Student 7: his favourite suitcase. Students need to listen to each other to continue the story in a way that makes sense. Feel free to mix up the number of words each student gets to use. Try these warm-ups too: • Listen! Focus! • Three Things in Common • Shakedown / Numbered Bodies / Numbered Tableaux • The End of the Word (and other exercises) Nonverbal CommunicationIt’s not just about what your students say, it’s how they portray it with their bodies and faces. Try this warm-up exercise (which is also great for working on active listening). Narrate a simple, yet descriptive story of a student walking to school. While you are narrating the story, have students move about the space, acting out their interpretations of what you’re describing. For example: “You exit your house and lock the door behind you. You heft your backpack across your back. It’s heavy with textbooks and binders, but it’s a nice sunny day with a slight breeze. You’re feeling good – your homework is done, you’ve packed a lunch, and you’re wearing your favourite shirt. As you’re walking, you notice a strange feeling on your foot. You pause and look at the bottom of your shoe and see that you’ve stepped in a large wad of gum. You don’t want to touch it with your hands, so you try different ways to scrape it off, but it stays stubbornly stuck. While you’re trying to get rid of the gum on your shoe, you notice an odd, wet feeling on your back. You look behind you and notice that your water bottle is leaking through your backpack onto your clothes…” And so on! Make the story as long or short as you need to for the warm-up. Try to leave your descriptions clear enough for students to come up with ideas on the fly, but open enough for students to come up with creative ways of acting out your narration. Try these warm-ups too: • Who’s Knocking? • Silent Line-Up Game • Magic Putty • Nonverbal Emotions (and other exercises)

That is the question…and it is yet another decision you must make while producing your upcoming school show. Yes, your students are making smart character choices and acting their hearts out; yes, the show is brilliantly written and staged; yes, the audience is packed with eager friends and family who cannot wait to see your students perform… But none of that matters if the audience can’t hear what’s going on. Luckily, we have an amazing invention, the microphone (or “mic” for short). These wonderful devices that help to amplify voices can absolutely be an asset to your theatre program, but they do come with some challenges. Consider the following points when you are deciding whether or not to use microphones for your upcoming show. 1. Do you absolutely need to mic the show?First and foremost – are microphones absolutely necessary in your performance space? How big is your theatre? If your theatre is a giant cavern of an auditorium with hundreds of seats, then mics may be necessary. But if your show is going up in a small studio theatre, then don’t bother! Is the show a play or a musical? Plays generally do not need mics unless you are in the aforementioned giant cavern of a theatre. Musicals may need microphones depending on if you are using a band or orchestra (versus backing tracks), how loud the musicians are, and where the musicians are located in relation to the performers and the audience. Are your students loud already? If your students have loud, healthy voices and great vocal technique, using microphones may be overkill. If not, work with your students on projecting their voices and vocal health and hygiene. Check out these Theatrefolk articles for tips: How Do I Solve Projection Issues, Projecting Your Voice Without Yelling, Why Isn’t My Actor Projecting Their Voice, 3 Tips for Keeping Your Voice Healthy, and 3 More Tips for Keeping Your Voice Healthy. Remind your students that they still need to project their voices while using microphones. A microphone cannot amplify a small, whispery voice enough to be heard. The sound operator can always bring down the volume on a big voice, but they can only crank up the volume so far, and that risks creating feedback. Who will put the mics on the students during showtime? Do you have enough crew members available backstage? Is your sound operator skilled enough to run the sound mix and turn different microphones on and off at the same time? And remember, technology can fail. Do you and your students have a troubleshooting plan in place in case a microphone breaks or dies during a show? Will your performers still be able to be heard, or do they depend on the mic? 2. What kind of mics are you going to use?This will depend on the kind of show you are doing. Some schools have an overhead microphone system that will amplify the general stage area but won’t specifically amplify any one student’s voice. It also will pick up non-voice sounds such as footsteps, set-moving sounds, and other ambient noise. The most common microphone types that are used in theatres are: • • Handheld mics (Wired or wireless; can be attached to a stand) • Lapel mics (Clips onto a shirt or jacket and attaches to a transmitter that is generally clipped on a microphone belt and worn under clothing/costumes; can be difficult to hear if the student is not facing forward) • Hair mics (Tiny mics that are set in the hairline with the wire going through the student’s hair and down their back; again usually attached to a transmitter worn under clothes. These mics generally come in black or tan. Can be difficult to use on students with very short hair or shaved heads.) • Countryman mics (Over-the-ear mics that go across the student’s cheek. These mics also generally come in black or tan. They are fragile and can be difficult to place on student’s heads. Thicker, newscaster style mics tend to be less expensive than the thinner, subtle mics, but are super-visible and distracting to audiences.) 3. How many mics do you need?You’ll need to decide who gets a microphone. Are you going to mic everyone or just the leads of the show? Will you mic any of the ensemble members? If so, who? More microphones means higher costs. Do you have enough money in your budget to mic the show? If your school already has a mic system in place, that’s great. But if yours doesn’t, will you purchase or rent microphones? Do you have the correct transmitters and receivers needed? You will have to do some research to figure out what microphones are available to you and your school and whether there are funds available to your department to make the necessary purchases or rentals for your show. Don’t forget about additional costs: batteries, chargers, body tape, hair clips, and disinfectant (if you’re using hair mics). You’ll also want to consider time: the time you will need to set up the equipment, to train your crew members and performers on correct microphone use, and the additional time at each performance to put on the microphones, do a sound check for each student using a mic, to remove the mics after each performance, put them away safely, and clean up.

In our recent post 3 Tips for Keeping Your Voice Healthy, we discussed three ways for students to focus on vocal health and vocal hygiene, working from the inside out (focusing on good health and rest, making smart lifestyle choices, and knowing when to seek help). In this post, we’re sharing three more tips students can use to keep their voices healthy and strong. These ones focus on practical physical techniques that students should use during drama classes, rehearsals, and while performing. 1. Focus on proper body alignment and posture.Students must employ good posture when speaking and singing. No slouching or slumping over – stand up straight, with the shoulders relaxed. When the spine is straight, with feet flat on the floor, the lungs are able to fill to capacity with air, and the throat is able to open fully. This makes singing and speaking much easier. As an added bonus, standing up straight makes you look taller and more confident. Practicing and rehearsing with good body alignment will make it easier to make the transition from standing to moving or dancing while speaking or singing. It is true that students will not always be standing perfectly straight while they are performing. For example, many of the performers in the musical Tarzan are generally performing in a squatting position with their arms and shoulders curled forwards – like gorillas, of course. However, learning and practicing proper body technique creates muscle memory, and when students do need to transition from standing to movement while speaking or singing, those good habits that they have practiced will stick with them. Helpful Links: • A Simple Breath Control Exercise for Actors and Singers • 6 Tips to Help Improve Enunciation 2. Open your mouth and relax your jaw.Do your students always ask to use microphones when they’re performing? Well, if they open their mouths, then they will be able to be heard without having to depend on a microphone. Students must think of their voices as instruments. Think about a clarinet or a trumpet – the bell on the end of the instrument is flared open so you can hear it. Similarly, trying to sing through a pursed or tight-lipped mouth is very difficult – not only is a performer difficult to hear, they are more likely to mumble or slur their words. In addition to opening their mouths, students must focus on releasing tension from their jaws. Holding tension in the jaw area makes it equally difficult to get sound out – and when the sound does come out easily, it is often sounds strained or tense. Have students practice relaxing their jaws by yawning out loud together, reciting vowels out loud in an exaggerated fashion (students should scrunch up, stretch and relax their entire face while holding the vowel sounds for a count of three), or massaging their jaw muscles. I also learned an interesting technique from a yoga instructor – if you are feeling tension in the jaw, focus on actively lowering your tongue from the roof of your mouth. It’s fascinating once you are aware of it, and it really works! Helpful Links : • How Do I Solve Projection Issues? • How Do You Promote Vocal Safety? 3. Warm-ups are crucial.I’ll say it again – warm-ups are crucial! Just as students must warm up their bodies before commencing physical movement or dance onstage, it is equally important for students to warm up their voices before performing. We warm up to prevent strain and injuries on our muscles, and the vocal folds are no different. Jumping right into a strenuous vocal performance without warming up is a great way to strain the vocal folds, which can lead to vocal injury or nodes. Vocal folds are very delicate, and warming up helps to relax those muscles and remove excess mucus (which is why a lot of performers don’t drink milk before a big show, as dairy products can “coat your throat”). Students who practice vocal warm-ups daily (even outside of rehearsals) will find that their voices feel stronger and that they are able to speak and sing for longer periods of time without feeling stressed or strained. Even 15 minutes each day is helpful. Simple warm-ups can involve deep breathing, humming, and lip trills. Helpful Links: • Projecting Your Voice Without Yelling • Create A Vocal Workout For The Articulators • 5 Tongue Twister Exercises for Ensemble-Building

Isn’t it funny how some students are loud and enthusiastic during break time, but once they’re onstage, their voices seem to disappear? No, you haven’t lost your hearing – it’s one of the many mysteries of working with students in the theatre. Students don’t always believe their teacher when they say, “You need to be louder!” or “I can’t understand what you’re saying!” However, the following exercise will help provide an alternative solution to this problem, as it focuses on peer evaluations. Hearing feedback from a peer is always different from receiving feedback from a teacher! In this exercise, students will rotate through performing their lines onstage and receiving feedback, and then observing others’ performances and giving feedback to their peers. Materials Needed:• Lines from a show/scene your class is currently studying, or a brief monologue (can be different for each student, or have all students present the same lines). For this exercise, it is best if the lines are memorized in advance, but this exercise can also be done “on book.” • If you’re looking for material, we’ve got free monologues you can use for this exercise. • Peer Evaluation Sheet (Don’t miss the giveaway at the end of the blog!) Instructions:• Students will take on two roles within this exercise – performer and peer evaluator. • For this exercise, it is better to not let students choose their partners. Draw partner names out a hat or have them go alphabetically. • One partner (the performer) will stand on the stage or in the centre of the classroom. The other partner (the peer evaluator) will stand at the back of the room or auditorium. • The performer will present their lines out loud, while the peer evaluator makes notes on the Peer Evaluation Sheet. Peer evaluators will focus on volume (soft versus loud), diction (clear versus unclear), and speed (too slow, too fast, or just right!). • Then students will switch roles, so each has the opportunity to perform the opposite role of performer or peer evaluator. • After all the performances have taken place, students will receive their feedback forms and complete a brief Reflection. • Alternative: You may wish to have students rotate between roles, rather than have partners evaluate each others’ performances. In this case, create a running order (the simplest version is going through the attendance list from top to bottom): Student A starts as evaluator while Student B starts as Performer. After B performs, they move to the evaluator role, while Student C steps up to become the performer, and so on. Student A would be the last to perform. Optional Class Discussion Questions:• How did you feel when you were evaluating your classmates? Was giving feedback easy or hard? • Was it difficult to focus on just the technical performance of the monologue/lines, rather than on the content? Why or why not? • In your opinion, is it easier to evaluate your friends, or a random classmate? • What are some tips that would help students improve the volume, diction, and speed of their monologue/lines? • Is there such a thing as being too loud onstage? Why or why not?

Student actors often find it challenging to create a character with a unique-sounding voice – that is, to make their character not sound just like they do themselves. Whether students are trying to hone an accent, create a funny or unusual way of speaking, or use different vocal intonations and inflections, they will often revert back to sounding like themselves. They are afraid of looking or sounding silly in front of their classmates. If your students are having trouble coming up with character voices, or if you’d like them just to experiment with using lots of different voices, try the following class activities using puppets, masks, or various props to explore. Using these items gives your students an external item to focus on, and gives them visual clues and ideas to help them narrow down their character choices, rather than just having to invent a character voice out of the blue. During these explorations, you may notice that students start by imitating or mimicking the voices of famous television or film characters. That’s all right to start with, but encourage your students to push beyond stereotypical characters. Remind students that this is an exploration – the characters and exercises are just to “try on,” and students aren’t bound to these characters forever! All three of these activities can be done as improv-style games, or students can prepare their ideas, rehearse during class time, and then present to the rest of the group. PuppetsPuppets have a magical quality about them: No matter hold old or young a person is, when they encounter a puppet – even if they can clearly see the puppeteer – they immediately focus on and talk to the puppet. It’s sometimes easier for students to use puppets to explore voice work because puppets can get away with saying things the student might not say. And it’s the puppet that looks silly, rather than the person. You’ll need to create or obtain a set of puppets for your class. If time permits, spend a class making simple sock puppets or paper bag puppets. Activity: Have students come up with funny names for their puppets, and let students introduce their puppets to each other. Then have students trade puppets with other classmates and come up with new names and introductions. The unique look of each puppet will help students come up with interesting characters and different voices. And trading the puppets around will give students a chance to try a new voice with each new puppet. MasksWhen doing vocal work with masks, try to find half-masks (covering only the upper half of the face) that allow students’ mouths and jaws to move freely. Commedia dell’arte masks are great to use for exploring characters, because they have interesting shapes and exaggerated features that can give your students different character ideas. Using masks for vocal work is a great challenge for students, because students must focus even more on their vocal tone and diction since they don’t have the advantage of using facial expressions to further express their character’s feelings. Alternatively, students could use hats instead of masks and come up with different exaggerated characters based on different kinds of hats. An assortment of work-related hats (such as a police uniform hat, construction hard hat, firefighter’s helmet, detective cap, newsie cap, beekeeper’s net, farmer’s straw hat, and so on) can be great tools to base funny characters on, and a lot of fun to experiment with! Activity: Have students sort themselves into pairs. The pairs will come up with different character names and voices, and then greet each other while wearing masks. Try to use half-masks, but you can still do this activity if you only have full face masks available. Masks that cover the full face do pose an interesting challenge – students will have to really work on speaking loudly, slowly, and clearly to be heard from behind the mask. Challenge your students to try adding gestures to build their characters, and then keep completely still and only focus on the voice. Which approach do your students find more challenging? Why? PropsFor this exercise, collect a variety of different hand props (such as a mug, a purse, a pencil, a shoe, a measuring tape, a towel – pretty much anything goes). Activity: Have students select an object and come up with a name and personality for that object. Have students personify the item and create a voice for that character to introduce themselves to the rest of the class. For example, perhaps “Tina Towel” is a perky pink towel who spends her days cleaning up messes in a kindergarten classroom. Would Tina have a cute squeaky voice, or a tired, exasperated voice? This is for your students to figure out! No matter what items you use to help students explore different characters, give them the opportunity to work with a variety of those items during the rehearsal time. Have students exchange items with each other and see what different characters emerge. Most importantly, have fun!

Vocal health and hygiene are crucial for drama students. Whether students are working on monologues, group scenes, or musical numbers, having a healthy voice is a must. It’s important for drama students who prefer to work backstage as well – stage managers must communicate verbally to technicians and assistant stage managers over headsets, and cannot afford to have scratchy and sore voices. Here are three tips to share with your drama students, to help them keep their voices healthy and strong. Many of these tips will seem like common sense, but it is always good for your students to have reminders! 1. Take care of the voice from the inside out. Illness and stress causes strain on students’ entire bodies, including their vocal folds. Students must take care of themselves in order to stay physically healthy and keep their voices strong. This means: • Drinking plenty of plain water (less sugary drinks like pop and juice) to keep the vocal folds moist and lubricated. • Eating nutritious food (lots of fruits and vegetables). • Avoiding throat clearing (this causes strain on the vocal folds). • Getting plenty of rest – so students aren’t exhausted and straining their voices – and giving their bodies adequate time to heal. • Dressing appropriately, especially during cold weather (students may want to invest in a warm scarf to keep their throats warm). These simple actions really add up to keeping students’ voices healthy, as well as contributing to their overall health and wellness. 2. Make smart choices. Drama classes and theatrical productions require strength and stamina. Students should consider the following choices, when focusing on their vocal health: • Avoiding excessive screaming and yelling, such as at a dance, football game, or rock concert, and choosing to forgo the occasional activity that may risk hurting their voices. • Engaging in vocal rest (which means ZERO talking or singing outside of the performance) when their voices are tired or feeling strained. (This one is REALLY hard for students!) • Staying away from people who smoke, as well as environments that are dusty or contain pollen or allergens. • Focusing on not leaving assignments and other commitments until the last minute, to avoid getting stressed out – which could make them sick. • Spending plenty of time warming up their voices before singing or speaking, and practicing proper vocal techniques to avoid vocal strain. It can be tough for students to make these choices, especially when their friends are out doing fun activities that they may have to miss out on. Remind students of their commitment to the show they are working on, as well as the joy they receive from their theatrical endeavours. While in the short term, making these choices isn’t always fun, in the long term, their smart choices will pay off with a wonderful, healthy production. 3. Know when to seek help. Nobody is perfect, and illness and vocal strain are bound to happen at some point to even the most diligent student. Students must learn to recognize when to seek help, in order to avoid further damage to their voices. • If something hurts, stop! Students should not try to force themselves to keep singing or speaking if their voices are feeling sore or scratchy. • Students must be aware of their vocal limitations. They must not try to force themselves to sing beyond their range, or belt without the assistance of a vocal coach or musical director. • If students are sick, they should stay home and rest, and get to the doctor for the appropriate treatment. They don’t need to risk their own health (as well as the health of other students and teachers) by coming to class or rehearsal sick. • If students are taking medication for their illness, they may feel temporary relief and wish to jump back immediately into singing and speaking. Remind students who are recovering from illness to do lots of warm-up activities and ease back into their vocal performance slowly. Monitor their vocal performance to ensure they don’t re-strain their voices. • Students may wish to search out further opportunities to improve their vocal strength and singing techniques, such as working with a vocal coach, taking singing lessons, or joining a choir. BONUS TIP : It is especially important for teachers to model these healthy behaviours and smart choices themselves. Students look up to their teachers, and, by demonstrating the importance of vocal health yourself, you are leading by example and showing your students the proper ways to keep their voices in peak condition.

Ontario teachers Claire Broome, Colin Oliver, and Carmelina Martin put together this awesome exercise that gets students to create their own vocal workout. Thank you so much for letting us share it here! What is an Articulator?Articulation is the act of vocal expression. Making sound, the volume of that sound, pronouncing words. The tone, quality, and pitch of those words. To speak articulately is to speak clearly. Articulators include the lips, teeth, tongue, jaw and palate. Fixed articulators remain still during speech- for example, the teeth. Active articulators move to produce sound- for example, the tongue. There are other factors to speaking clearly, such as posture. Good posture increases breath capacity and sustainability, both of which are needed to make sound. Exercise: Articulator Warm-Up Having a clear voice is important for any actor. If an audience is to understand a play, they need to understand the actor. Warming up the voice by exercising the articulators will help actors to speak clearly. In this exercise, students will create their own articulator warm-up. They will put together a song using lines that exercise different articulators. Remind students that articulation is not just about making sound- they must think about their volume, the variety of sound (loud, soft), the clarity of their speech, and good posture. Performance Tasks1. Choose 2 or 3 lines from each category below and arrange the lines into a simple jingle or song that everyone can sing. (Note: Camp songs work well.) 2. You can repeat the lines as many times as you need to. For example, if your song has a chorus, your lines will be repeated. 3. Write out a copy of your song. 4. Memorize the song. 5. You will perform the memorized articulation warm-up for an evaluation. CategoriesLip Exercises • Bubble, babble, pebble • Rub-a-dub-dub • A big brown bear • Hip hop, tip top, tip top, popcorn • Puh-tuh-kuh-buh-duh-huh • Plum pie • Lonely man in the moon • Roo-roe-rah-ray-ree Tongue and Teeth Exercises • Five fifths • Give gifts • Vicious villain • Tay tee tie toe too • Day dee die do doo • Loo low law lah lie lay lee • Thigh thin thick thud thumb thank • Though thou thy they there • See say sigh sew soo • Zoo zone zest zinc zeal • Ooh ohy ahy ayj eej • Ooth ohth ahth ayth eeth • Oosth ohsth ahsth aysth eesth • Oosths ohsths ahsths aysths eesths Palate Exercises • Cut cubes in quarters • Ook ohk ahk ayk eek • Going ga-ga at the go-go • Kay key kar kur koo • Going out, coming in, yell ye, young men Tongue Twisters • A bitter, British blizzard • Dimpled dolly dwelt with dappled deer • The frothing filly frisketh frantically • Six gray geese grazing on green grass • Horace’s horse was hampered by the hillock • Jolly Jimmy Jupiter jumpin in the gym • Cather cooked coffee in the coffee pot • Loitering along a long lonely lane • Peter picked pickled peppers • Tom peeped through three thick trees Sample Articulator Warm-Up Song (Sung to the tune of “If you’re happy and you know it”) Bubble, babble, pebble, rub a dub dub (clap, clap) Bubble, babble, pebble, rub a dub dub (clap, clap) Lonely man in the moon, five fifths, give gifts, Loitering along a long lonely lane (clap, clap)

When you’re rehearsing a musical close to performance week, the last thing you want to hear is that one of your students can’t sing. Promoting vocal health in young singers is crucial. Here’s how some teachers do it with their students. You’ll notice they make a lot of the same points, which means they’re important! Tricia Oliver, Alabama“To constantly self-check and evaluate. Ask: How can I help them? How can I help my students get better on the stage? Students need to be educated on staying healthy and staying hydrated. Make sure they understand the voice is an instrument they need to take care of. Take every opportunity to talk to them about using their mind, using their body, and make sure they’re doing what they need to do vocally. And also to remember that students not only need the vocal warm up from the music teacher but also a vocal warm up from the drama teacher! Don’t forget to include projection exercises.” Joanna Fellows, Maryland“Drink water. Not only encouraging students to drink water but model drinking water. I have a bad habit of drinking a lot of caffeine, but I try hard to drink water in front of my students because it reminds them to drink water too. If you drink a diet coke at rehearsals they’ll think that’s what you do.” Kellybrooke Brown, Alabama“Just be quiet. If you’re in the cafeteria and it’s loud, listen instead of talk. You don’t always have to participate in the conversation. Preserve your voice. It’s so important and kids don’t really understand that. Your voice is your instrument and you have to take care of your instrument. Being quiet is number one.” Rebecca Cates, Kentucky“Warm up. Just as we do with any exercise involving our bodies we have to warm up. The vocal chords and the voice are no different. We have to make sure our muscles are working appropriately. If we don’t warm up our voices, we will have the same problems. Voices have to be taken care of just as any other part of the body.” Roxane Caravan, Florida“My phrase is: ‘Your body is a temple.’ My kids know it; I say it all the time. Stay out of loud places. Don’t eat lunch in the cafeteria. Don’t scream. Eat healthy. Drink nothing but water or herbal tea in the theatre. If you’re in the band you take care of your violin. If you’re in theatre, take care of your whole body. When doing marathon rehearsal weekends, we get parents to rotate and do meals so that no one goes out to get junk food. We make sure the kids eat healthy.” Lea Marshall, Florida“Find a good musical director! Find someone who’s knowledgeable and let them tell you what to do. If you don’t know something, it’s okay to delegate.” Connie Voight, Alabama“It is exhausting for them. I demand 100% and it can be exhausting. We talk about getting enough sleep, turning down fun things for staying home and getting homework done early. Go to your teachers and say, “I know this is going to be a miserable week. Can I get my assignments early?” That way you’re not stressed during performance week. Stress and weariness go hand in hand and that leads to getting sick. And if you do get sick, stay home.” Jared Benn, Pennsylvania“High schoolers aren’t aware of the taxing nature of performance. Use and abuse of the voice. What I preach as a requirement to be in my shows is preventive care. Drink water, get sleep, no screaming, wear a coat when it’s cold outside. It sounds elementary to adults, but to kids (who are willing to run around outside in the winter in their bare feet because they’ve just been at rehearsal) those reminders are very useful. There are things you can do that you’re in control of to help maintain your voice, to make sure you have the stamina to get through a whole show, rehearsal process, year. Yes there are things we can’t control, but let’s concentrate on the things that we can do to avoid putting ourselves in vocally vulnerable positions.”

The Vowel Tree Exercise enables us to practice making sounds with our voice and exploring the entire vocal range from low to high. It allows us to be vocally impulsive in a non-judgemental way. When we are younger, we make all kinds of crazy noises. We enjoy our vocal apparatus. It’s new to us and we like discovering how it works. As we get older, we learn to tap down those impulses to make crazy sounds. It’s not something we do in polite society. Sometimes, this imprinting keeps us from releasing our voice onstage. Acting is behaving truthfully in imaginary circumstances. One of the ways we can get to acting truthfully in imaginary circumstances is to free our voice by allowing it to behave naturally in any circumstance. With the Vowel Tree Exercise, students make sounds and motions with their bodies. It’s going to look and sound silly! Model each step for your students. That way, they see you do it and know that it’s okay. Practice this on your own before you show it to your students. Sometimes students can feel really self-conscious about this exercise. Model confidence to your students in this exercise. The more confident you are, the more confident your students will be. Watch the video below for a demonstration of the exercise.

If you want your characters to be three dimensional, you have to consider their voice. What words do they choose? What’s the structure of their language? How do they communicate? A character specific voice not only gives an actor something to play, but it also lifts the character off the page. There is no such thing as silent reading in theatre. We want characters to come to life. Defining how a character sounds is an essential part of that process. How do we define a character specific voice? 1. Define their vocabularyWhat words does this character use when they talk? Do they stick to one syllable or do they reach for the ten dollar words? Do they use ten dollar words even when they don’t know what they mean? Do they pronounce them correctly? Do they use words associated with a favourite pastime? For example, if they like Star Wars, do they talk about the Force? If they like football, do they frame everything in terms offense and defense? Do they show off their knowledge of physics or fashion? Word choice is key to creating a specific character. Exercise Play with word choice by putting two different characters into the same scenario. The location is a courtroom. The situation is that one of the characters is trying to talk the judge out of giving them a parking ticket. Define the vocabulary for each of these characters. What words would they choose to communicate to the judge? Do they succeed in the end? Does their word choice improve their situation or make it worse? • Scientist • Fashion Model • Artist • Computer Programmer • Chef • Ballet Teacher • Lawyer • Construction Worker • Librarian • Personal Trainer 2. Define their language structureOnce you look at the “what” of your character’s voice, you want to look at the “how.” How are their sentences constructed? Do they speak with grammatical correctness or with a lot of sentence fragments? Do they say “I am unfamiliar with that term,” or “I don’t know” or “Dunno”? Do they speak in short, clipped sentences or long, run-on sentences? What is the character’s primary punctuation? Do they speak in blunt statements or exclamations? Do they go off on tangents? Defining the “how” in a character’s voice is the best way to write the sound of a character. It also gives the actor playing that role a playbook in terms of vocal pace, speed, tone, and tension. Exercise Write a monologue using the same scenario with two different characters. A boy is asking the head cheerleader out on a date. Be specific with the language structure. Depending on the boy’s character, what is his primary punctuation? Sentence length? Does he use contractions? Does he speak in complete thoughts or sentence fragments? • Debate Team Member • Quarterback • AV Club Member • Student Council President • Math Club Member • Environment Club Member • Yearbook Editor • School Spirit Leader 3. Define how they communicateTheatre is a communicative form. A character’s main job is to communicate their story, viewpoint, and personality to an audience. Decide how you want the audience to perceive a character and how well you want the character to communicate. Is your character direct? Are they vocally high status? Do they tell the truth all the time? Do they speak in statements? Do they get to the point? Do they state their opinions with confidence? Or is your character indirect. Are they vocally low status and insecure? Do they take forever to get to the point? Do they peeter off at the end of their sentences? Or punctuate every line with a nervous laugh? Do they verbally meander? Do they lie? Once you decide what a character says, and the structure of their speech, you can establish a character’s specific voice. Exercise Choose one of the character types from the previous exercises. Write a monologue in which that character talks to their parents about something they’ve done. Before you start, decide if the character is direct or indirect. • If your character is direct , then your character is: confident, truthful, concise, and is high status. • If your character is indirect , then your character is: insecure, untruthful, rambles, and is low status. Include all four elements in the monologue. Variation: Choose a character who is typically indirect and write them as direct for this scenario, and vice versa. *Note: For all the exercises in this post, “type” characters are used. This is to give students an instant visual and a doorway into the writing. Certainly, as you move forward with character specific writing, it will become less about the “type” and more about using these tools to create dimension.

The actor’s job is to tell the story of the play to the audience. Proper enunciation is essential for the audience to have any idea of what the actor is saying or singing during a production. Enunciation is the act of pronouncing words. Good enunciation means your words are clear and distinct. Listeners can understand what you’re saying. Remember that scene in the film version of My Fair Lady where Professor Higgins and Eliza Doolittle worked on “The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain?” Without proper enunciation, that sentence can be a garbled mess! But by enunciating your words, your audience will easily understand even the most difficult, tongue-twisty lines. Enunciation starts with proper body alignment. How do you stand? Where do you place your head? Here are 6 tips to help you adjust your body to the best position for proper enunciation. 1. Stand up straight.When you stand up straight, you create a straight line from your diaphragm to your lungs. This makes it so much easier for the sound to come out. Hunching or slouching makes roadblocks in your body, so you have to work that much harder to get out the proper sounds. Why not make it easy on yourself? (Standing up straight also makes you look much taller and more confident on stage!) 2. Look forward and up.To expand upon Tip #1, you need to keep a straight line from your throat to the area just outside of your mouth. Think of sipping your favourite drink– it’s easier to get the liquid through a straight straw than a bendy straw! Your voice will go where you aim it. Therefore, if you are looking at the floor, your voice will go towards the floor rather than toward your scene partner and the audience. Focus on keeping your chin up and away from your chest. That will help keep your throat open and your voice moving forward, which will make it much easier for the audience to hear you. 3. Relax your shoulders and arms.If your shoulders and arms are hunched and stiff, that means you are holding tension in your body. That will make it harder for proper sound to come out. A favourite team-building exercise is a massage circle. Grab a group of fellow actors; stand in a circle, facing the back of the person in front of you. (NOTE: Make sure this is a group that has worked together before so everyone is comfortable with each other.) Have every person gently massage the back and shoulders of the person in front of them. You can use a variety of movements including backrubs (to warm up the muscles) and chopping motions. (NOTE: Never push directly on anyone’s spine!) Be sure to have the circle switch directions, so each person massages the back and shoulders of the person behind them. 4. Slow down.When an actor is nervous, it can be a natural tendency to rush through lines to get them done faster. But this results in garbled speech! Actively think about slowing down your speech. It will feel unnatural at first, but it will sound great to the people who are listening to you! Think about pausing and breathing at punctuation marks when you’re saying your lines. Also, be sure to separate every word so the audience can hear you. 5. Breathe deeply.Breathing deeply will force you to slow down and relax, as you draw breath down into your lungs and diaphragm. This will help you to stay calm and speak your lines clearly. 6. Open your mouth!If you watch a powerful singer perform, you’ll see that they are not afraid to open their mouths wide. Many young actors are afraid they’ll look silly if they open their mouths too much, but the opposite is true– you’ll look much sillier if nobody can hear what you’re saying! Try speaking through a cardboard tube. Your voice probably sounds muffled right? It’s because the tube is narrow the whole way down, and that’s what your mouth looks like when you don’t open up. Now try speaking through a paper cone or a megaphone. As the end opens up, your voice is projected and sounds louder and clearer. Your mouth works just the same way– open it up and let everyone hear that gorgeous sound!

Tongue twisters are a fantastic tool to use in drama classes and rehearsals. They help students to warm up their voices, improve diction and enunciation, and get their brains moving! But repeating tongue twister exercises in unison can get boring. Here are five ways for your students to use tongue twisters in a different way– to build teamwork and cultivate ensemble thinking! 1. Brainstorming ExerciseThe students will create two lists. First, have them brainstorm for as many different tongue twisters as they can think of. Second, have them come up with a list of the benefits of using tongue twisters in the classroom/rehearsal space. How does using tongue twisters benefit you as an actor? Bonus exercise: Divide students into groups to create a poster of the tongue twister list and benefits list to display in the classroom. Or have them do a video or PowerPoint presentation to share with younger students. 2. Listening/Matching ExerciseStart with the basics. Choose a tongue twister. Have your students pair off and practice saying the tongue twister to their partner in their own voice, focusing on over-enunciating and exaggerating the words. This will help with vocal clarity and projection. Then have your students come back together to work on tongue twisters in a big group. Have one student say a tongue twister in a character voice (for example, as an old person with a slow, scratchy voice). Have the rest of the group match the tone and tempo for the first student. Have them try to breathe at the same spots. This encourages your students to really listen and work as a team! From there, try different voices–like a baby voice, a surfer dude voice, different accents–while continuing to focus on diction and crisp enunciation. 3. Listening/Teamwork ExerciseHave your students stand in a circle. Choose a tongue twister. Each student says one word of the tongue twister in succession. Focus on making the tongue twister flow smoothly from one student to the next, as if only one person was speaking. Try not to pause or jump ahead of the student in front of you! 4. Teaching/Leadership ExerciseThis exercise can be done in pairs or small groups. Get a calendar and assign each student pair a day to teach a new tongue twister to the class. Alternatively, the pair could invent their own tongue twister to share with their peers. 5. Mixed-Bag Challenge ExerciseHere’s the ultimate challenge! The Mixed-Bag Challenge Exercise requires your students to be brave. They reach into a bag or hat, pull out a slip of paper with a prompt on it, and try to complete the challenge listed on the slip! This challenge can be done as individuals, pairs, teams, or as a whole class, depending on how competitive you want to make it. Prompts might include: • Use a tongue twister as the starting sentence of an improv scene. • Divide into two teams: Who can say a tongue twister the fastest? • Make a tongue twister into a song. • In a group, create a new tongue twister, starting with the letter _____. Don't miss the giveaway below that includes 25 tongue twister challenge prompts that you can use for the Mixed-Bag Challenge Exercise - plus a reflection sheet your students can complete after the challenge.

Directors and teachers, we’ve all been there: You’ve cast a wonderful young actor in a role that is fantastic and challenging for them. You get into the rehearsal room and all of a sudden, it’s like their voice has been sucked out of them. “What did you say? I can’t hear you!” You know they can be loud–that’s been proven over and over during break time–but for some reason, their voice just isn’t coming through when they’re onstage. There are a number of reasons why your actor might not be projecting their voice. Here are five possible reasons for you to explore with your actor. Make sure to download the Tip Sheet at the end of the article! 1.They don’t know how to properly project their voice.Some young actors have never been properly taught to project. You’ll need to work on proper projection technique and breath control with this young actor. Here’s a great article about learning to project without yelling. Remember: Your vocal cords should not hurt after performing. Your sound needs to come from your diaphragm, whether you’re speaking or singing onstage. 2. They’re nervous.Some actors lose their volume onstage when they are nervous or anxious about their performance. Help your actors keep their nerves in check with breathing and relaxation exercises. Perhaps your cast has a rehearsal routine that will help actors get out of their “real life” mindset and into their “acting” mindset. 3. They’re under-prepared or not off-book.“If they can’t hear me, they won’t know I don’t know my lines yet!” Wrong! Some actors will try to disguise their lack of preparation by keeping their volume low. Be clear and firm about when your off-book date is. Are there consequences for not being off-book by the deadline? Encourage your actors to help each other learn their lines and practice together. 4. They are experiencing vocal strain or they’re sick.Proper self-care is so important for performers. Getting enough rest, eating healthfully, drinking lots of water, and warming up properly are all imperative for actors to keep physically healthy. If actors are experiencing vocal strain, encourage them to drink warm water with lemon or honey and go on vocal rest (which can sometimes be very difficult for young actors!). If they’re sick, make sure they stay home from rehearsal so they don’t infect the rest of the cast with their germs! 5. They don’t want to be heard.This is a tough one. There are a multitude of reasons why an actor doesn’t want to be heard. They might not understand their part, or maybe they don’t like the role they’ve been cast in. They might be embarrassed about a certain line. They might feel anxious or insecure about their acting skills. It could be something else entirely. Maybe there’s something going on at home that they’re unconsciously bringing with them to rehearsal. Communicate regularly with your actors. Check in with them to see how they’re feeling. Sit down with them and talk about their role. Maybe they need encouragement or more explanation than they’ve been given. Get to know your actors and how they tick. Once you’ve established what’s going on, you’ll be much better equipped to help them get to the performance level that they need and are capable of. Good luck!

Breath control is so important for performers, whether they’re in rehearsal, onstage, or somewhere in between. Breath control affects the range, volume, and speed of both speaking and singing. Practicing skills to improve breath control technique can vastly improve your speaking and singing abilities. Breath control exercises can also help calm your nerves! Have you ever felt nervous before going up onstage? Your breathing may quicken and you may take more shallow breaths to get more oxygen to your brain. You may rush through your lines to try and get them out faster. Maybe you have to take more breaths to get through a vocal phrase. Taking time to focus on breathing deeply and completely filling your lungs can help you to relax a bit and feel more confident. The following exercise will help you to train yourself to focus on your breathing and to improve your breath control. It’s deceptively simple, but working on it a few minutes every day really adds up. Instructions: 1. Stand with your feet flat on the floor and keep your shoulders back and relaxed. Imagine a string coming out of the top of your head that keeps you standing straight and tall. 2. Place your hands on your stomach. Practice taking a breath from your diaphragm. Imagine your lungs and diaphragm filling up with air like a balloon. Feel your stomach expand and contract as you inhale and exhale. Make sure not to hunch up your shoulders around your ears or gasp. Keep your inhale controlled! 3. Breathe in for a count of four, and then exhale though your teeth with a “ssssss” sound for a count of four. When you come to four, stop the exhale crisply. You’ll probably have lots of air left, but the exercise is going to become more challenging! 4. Breathe in for a count of four, and repeat the exhale for a count of eight. Repeat the exercise exhaling for longer counts (ten, twelve, fourteen). The more you practice this exercise, the longer you will be able to hold the sound. The reason for cutting the exhale off crisply is to practice ending on an exact count. This is useful for singers, as they frequently need to cut off a note at the exact same time as the rest of the group, for a clean sound. Variations:Change up the sound. “Ssssss” is easy to start with, but challenge yourself to use different sounds like “ah,” “yeah,” “no,” “mmm,” and “why.” You can also challenge your ensemble members to match pitch with each other, or to exhale in harmony! Click below for a PDF Practice Log that you can download and use in your classroom. Have your students try this exercise daily from Monday to Friday. In the 4-count, 8-count, 10-count, 12-count columns, have them note with a check mark whether they were able to complete the exercise. Have them rate themselves with a mark from 1 to 5 on how successfully they feel they completed each vocal pass. 5 = completed with ease 4 = completed to the actor’s satisfaction 3 = completed, but not easily 2 = completed with difficulty 1 = incomplete The Etc. Column is where the student can note if they were able to extend their practice to a higher count (14 and upwards). Sounds Used refers to the sound made (“sssss,” “ah,” “yeah,” “no,” “mmm,” “why”). Have them note any successes or challenges in the last two columns. On Friday, have your students complete the Check-In Reflection below the log. Good luck and have fun!

Breath Control and Projection are critical skills for an actor, but they’re just as critical for drama teachers. The trick is to speak loudly and project without yelling. We often tell our students to project, but what about us? Think about how many times you have to raise your voice in a day. Do you project or do you yell? Why do we need to project instead of yell?Yelling uses vocal cords, which can get damaged if overused. Projection uses breath from the diaphragm and uses air to create the volume you want. How do I know if I’m yelling or projecting?If your diaphragm is not doing the work of creating volume, your vocal cords are – something has to do the work. If you keep yelling, your throat will start to feel sore. Projection has a depth to the sound. It tends to have a slightly deeper pitch and a rounder, more complex sound. Yelling sounds flat with a higher pitch. How do I learn to project my voice?Breathing from the diaphragm is key to learning how to project. The ‘ha’ exercise is one that works very well to practice. You take a big breath in – expanding your lungs down and your abdomen out – and then you force all that air out on a “ha.” This exercise is built for projection. You are using all your air at once on one sound so you can force that sound out and be really loud with it. Using that much air sends your sound out far and that’s what you’re trying to do. Exercise: Visualization TechniqueWe can also use visualization to improve our projection. Since we are trying to get our sound to travel away from us, it can help to pick a spot on the wall opposite us and visualize your sound hitting that spot on the wall. It will let you focus on how far you want your sound to go. 1. Find several different-sized spaces. It might be a large room in which you can stand close, and then further away from a wall. 2. Find something to say. It might be a random sentence or you can use the list in the PDF download (see below) for ideas. 3. Stand close to the wall (or in a small space) and speak. Ask yourself: • Does the sound echo back? You should hear some echo, but not too much – enough to ensure you are being heard but not overly loud. 4. Once you have determined how loud you need to be in the space you’re in, look at how much air you use to speak at that volume. Keep track of how big of a breath you take in and how much air you let out. 5. Practice saying your phrase over and over until you’re sure you know how much air you need to be heard in the size space that you’re in. 6. Then, you move to a bigger space and repeat the exercise. Soon yelling will be a thing of the past! If you want to learn more about Breath Control and Projection – be sure to check out my course on the Drama Teacher Academy: The course covers what breath control and projection are, how to breathe from your diaphragm and speak loudly without yelling, and how to teach these skills to your students.

I am a huge fan of tongue twisters in the theatre classroom. They have so many uses. They get a group focused & relaxed, they help warm up the voice, they get the lips and tongue limber and ready to enunciate, they get the brain fired up, they get a class working as a team. And they’re also a whole lot of fun. We asked our Facebook fans for their favourite tongue twister and, judging by the number of responses we got, it seems that theatre teachers love tongue twisters too! Thanks to them (and mostly to Douglas Fox) this document has over 600 awesome tongue twisters. Learn your favourites as a group and use them as vocal warm-ups. Here are some other activities that use tongue twisters. Teamwork Activity• Have the class sit in circle. Choose one of the tongue twisters and teach it to the class. Choose one person to start. They say the first word of the tongue twister, the person to their right says the next word, and so on. Start slowly then gradually increase speed. Writing Activity• Choose a tongue twister. Write a monologue or scene that begins with it. Write a monologue or scene that ends with it. Aim to make the words of the tongue twister organically fit the scene or monologue. • Choose one of the nonsensical tongue twisters. Write a scene around it that gives it meaning. Singing Warm-ups• Match a singing warm-up with a tongue twister that has the same number of syllables. Set Design• Choose one of the longer story-oriented tongue twisters and design a set for it. Acting• If you’re working on a play, speak the tongue twisters like your character would speak them. • If you’re not working on a play, write a Character Profile for someone who would say this tongue twister as part of their normal speech pattern. Improvisation• Do an improv where the tongue twister is the first line of a scene. • Do an improv where the tongue twister is the last line of a scene. • Play Sentences. This is a two person improv game. Write several tongue twisters on strips of paper. Each player puts half the strips of paper in their pocket. The players improvise a scene and every so often they pull out strips of paper and inject the tongue twister into the scene.